Gillian Reynolds on Radio

We're up to our ears in Americans telling us how to live, says Gillian Reynolds

Sometimes there are miraculous moments of radio coincidence, as when someone on the air puts the very question just starting to form in your own mind.

On Radio 4's Today programme Edward Stourton finished an interview yesterday with Bill Bryson, about British litter and its shameful abundance, by asking him (very politely) what right he had, as an American, to be ticking us off.

Bryson was all Gary Cooper (as in Mr Deeds Goes to Town) about it, saying we are all capable of doing better and he was just reminding us of it. Much as I know he is right, and much as I loathe and deplore the litter that rises up in tides from the pavements round where I live, I was right there with Ed.

Is there no Brit capable of telling us to pick it up? Then I thought of that poor woman, spoken of on yesterday's Thought for the Day, who was pushed in front of a train by two young men because she'd told them off for smoking. Suddenly Bill seemed a better bet.

But there seem to be lots of Americans telling us what to do these days. Joe Queenan, for one. There he is, all barbs and quivers, on Radio 4 on Wednesday mornings with A Wonderful Way to Make a Living.

There he was on Radio 3 on Sunday night with A Brief History of Cunning, the completion of a trilogy that began with Irony and Failure. His conclusion was that we all have to be cunning if we're going to survive. What cunning consists of occupied the 45 minutes in between.

It means clever, sly and crafty, but also ingenious, skilful, subtle, so it's not necessarily a bad thing to be cunning. "Welcome to Over-The-Top Productions," he said, cunningly playing down his serious intent and heavyweight experts.

There was classicist Edith Hall, for one. "Let's talk about Odishus," said Queenan. She preferred to speak of Odysseus who, she pointed out, was cunning in securing his own escapes but not those of his men. She thinks Odysseus is really the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey because only an old sailor, looking back on his adventures, could possess that particular narrative style.

I could have listened to her argue this for longer, but Queenan had to bring in politicians (real and fictional), gangsters (in a fight, go for the biggest guy, because he won't be used to fighting, but keep your eye on the littlest, who will), and authors.

From Tim Parks, translator of Machiavelli's The Prince, he extracted his handiest definition of cunning: the ability to assess a situation rapidly, react unpredictably, and gain the advantage. Might that be Queenan's secret of success?

There is a Friday night series on Radio 2, The Novel That Changed My Life (an odd title). Try as I might, I can't quite believe Cherie Blair's life was totally altered by reading Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. On the other hand, listening to Vic Reeves last Friday talk about On the Road, Jack Kerouac's 1957 bestseller, I was utterly convinced.

Reeves read it in 1977, when he was 19. It spoke to him. So he grew a goatee, left home, hitched a ride on a lorry to search, like Sal and Dean in the novel, for "it", whatever "it" might be.

He got off at Grantham, tried to sleep in a stubbly field, went on to London and Bristol, and was back home in Darlington in a week. But he did it, he tried it. He even bought a tenor sax and busked with it, to Roland Kirk records. Interspersed with his vivid narrative were testimonies from Kerouac's friends, text extracts, jazz and Kerouac himself, long dead, his young voice tinged with the faint accent of Lowell, Massachusetts. It was unforgettable.

Hats off, too, to John Wilson, regular reporter and occasional presenter on Radio 4's Front Row. Last Tuesday's edition was devoted to his interview with Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, collectively the Police, long since acrimoniously split, re-formed for a reunion tour that ended on Thursday.

They talked vividly, revealingly, but separately. From what they said, Wilson put together a classic portrait that spoke volumes and explained much.